Imagine a marine layer floating over a coastal town. A family in this town is hopeful that the sun will burn the fog away so they can go to the beach and enjoy the great weather. The day seems to go on forever and the sun never comes out. The family ends up being stuck…
At this time of annual reflection, I always feel it is worth looking back and picking out some of the better readings and materials I have come across over the past number of months. My father recently said he wished he had been in possession of a wheel barrow when visiting Harvard University’s bookstore, and…
I recently watched a Sainsbury advertisement on YouTube that made me reflect on peace. Readers can view this video at Christmas Truce video. It’s under 4mins. You might wish to do that before reading on. Now that you have watched the video (or not), let me make two preliminary points. First, no. I am not…
(This is the first of three parts of a keynote address to the YMCA Conference “From Reactions to Relations” in Burton on Trent on 20 November 2014) Here’s an interesting phenomenon. When asked to play the part of an adversarial lawyer students have no difficulty. It’s as if the script for this activity is carved…
This post is unlikely to win me friends on America’s West Coast and it may even see my US mediation teaching visa withdrawn, however when the issue even has its own Facebook group called Save the Mediation Joint Session and Promote Party Participation with over 50 of the world’s top mediators signed up, then the patient is more critical than I thought. The rise…
Global Legal Post recently carried an article intriguingly entitled “Lawyers find Eureka moments in the shower“. Sadly the article itself lacked the slightly salacious promise of its title. Instead, it focused on the results of a survey of London city lawyers, indicating that those surveyed did their most creative thinking in the shower or commuting…
I have never been a great fan of mediator’s proposals. I took the view that the mediator’s job, done well, was to help the parties to come to a solution themselves. Party autonomy and all that. Achieving a satisfactory outcome, I thought, shouldn’t require a specific suggestion by the mediator. I have changed my view….
In a previous post, I shared Professor Stacie Strong’s call for blog readers to respond to her survey on international commercial mediation practice. Thank you to everyone you did. While the final results are still pending, Prof Strong has released some preliminary results from the study. The study, which is entitled “Use and Perception of…
Some 20 years ago, as part of a nostalgia trip (for me) and introductory trip (for my wife) to my childhood haunts in Malaysia, we visited the coastal town of Lumut and the offshore island, Pangkor. This was probably a bad idea. I’d last visited those place as a child, with my family, in the…
On 24th September Kluwer and the International Academy of Mediators (IAM) hosted their inaugural mediation webinar – ‘7 Ways to Make Your Next Mediation Successful’. Attendees joined from all over the world. Don’t worry if you couldn’t attend on the day – we’ve posted the webinar on YouTube, and it can be viewed here. 1….
